FAA Approves Night Operations for UAS in North Dakota

Photo courtesy UAS Vision

By Priya Potapragada




The Federal Aviation Administration has authorized nighttime unmanned aircraft system operations to the Grand Forks County Sheriff’s Department in North Dakota, making it the first law enforcement agency in the nation to receive permission to fly night missions. 



The unit has been deployed nine times since May 2013 on various assignments, including documenting serious traffic accident scenes and searching for suspects wanted for serious felonies.



The UAS unit has been approved by the University of North Dakota’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Research Compliance Committee for five kinds of uses, which comprise of searches for missing people, searches for serious crime suspects, disaster assessments, crime and traffic accident scene documentation, and traffic monitoring at major events.



The unmanned aircraft are always operated within line of sight of the ground-based pilot and stay within the approved perimeter and are never applied for routine patrol.



The Grand Forks Sheriff’s Department Unmanned Aircraft Systems Unit operates in collaboration with the University of North Dakota and unmanned aircraft systems manufacturers AeroVironment and Draganfly Innovations.